Merry Mix-Up (Holiday Hearts)

22. Newt

22

NEWT

I climbed back into Dad's truck and sped off feeling so angry I knew if I didn't leave, I'd tear that man limb from limb, and not because he was putting his hands on Amber. All the anger and rage I felt a few years ago when I found out my ex had cheated on me came bubbling back to the surface, and I was almost blind with rage. I had to stop a few blocks away at a stop sign and take a few deep breaths to calm down.

I was in pain—hurting so bad I could have done anything reckless to stop it. And it wasn't pain from my busted lip. My heart hurt. How could this happen again, and how did I not see it? The times Amber shied away from me and was distant, she was probably with him. Every time I asked her to do something and she said no, she wasn’t studying. She was with him. My mind started to fill in every blank with accusations and rationalizations and I couldn't think straight. So I did the one thing I knew might help. I turned toward Naomi's apartment.

It was still early, and there was a chance she was still sleeping, but I had so many questions and right now, I was too angry with Amber to answer them. I let my heart get so carried away with her to the point I was falling in love, and I never stopped to question whether she was seeing someone or not. I didn't even ask Naomi if her best friend was dating. The only thing she and I spoke about was if Amber liked cocoa or how she felt about the snow—but thanks to Amber's insistence that we keep things quiet for now, I played that off as wedding stuff too.

Even that made more sense now. She was keeping our fling quiet because she didn't want Naomi to learn about our fling. Naomi would have told me she was dating someone. Naomi would have told Amber how wrong that was and maybe even told that man what she was doing. None of this would have happened. It's why she wanted it to be a secret.

The tires of the car squealed as I turned the corner onto Naomi's street and I realized how out of control I was acting. I felt so foolish for letting yet another woman get to me. I didn't know how I could just fall for someone so blindly and not know they were cheating. I was starting to wonder if all women were like this, if my mother had done it to my father, or if Naomi had done it to Jared.

My heart was too full of negativity to even think clearly, and when I knocked on the door a little too loudly, I winced at my own lack of tact. Naomi answered the door with her hair tied up in a bonnet and a sleep mask on her forehead. She was frantically tying her house coat around her body and scowling at me as she blinked at the harsh sunlight flooding her front room.

"Newt, what the heck? What time is it, anyway?" She held her arm in front of her face and backed into the dim room as I stomped my way into her house to keep the snow outside.

"It's early," I grumbled, and I didn't even bother taking my coat off. I shut the door a little too hard and raked a hand through my unwashed hair. And to think, just last night, Amber's hands were the ones snaking their way through my waves. It felt so surreal and almost like my emotions were out of place or unwarranted.

"What are you doing here so early?" Naomi flipped on a light and followed me as I started pacing her long, narrow living room. I left puddles on the floor from the snow on my soggy boots and avoided the poinsettias lining the wall. There wasn't a surface untouched by wedding and Christmas decorations. It looked like the inside of Santa's workshop had exploded in here.

"I'm really upset…" How did I just come out and tell her that her best friend was a lying cheat? Should I even do that? It might wreck the wedding for sure, or maybe Naomi would be the forgiving type who would try to bring peace and harmony to the situation, but I doubted it.

"Okay, well slow down." She grabbed my arm and tried to pull me toward the sofa, but I opted to head to the kitchen table where my boots would do less damage to the floor. I parked my ass in a chair and rested my elbows on the table, burying my face in my palms.

"Tell me what's going on, Newt." I heard a chair scrape against her linoleum floor and felt her presence near me on my right side.

"I don't know if I can be a part of your wedding now, Nomie." The decision was a snap one, made on the spot, but it was the first thing that came to my mind. I'd have to walk down the aisle with Amber and she'd be touching me. How could I do that? How could I look her in the eye ever again, when I was ready to give my heart to her, body, soul, and spirit?

"Oh, God, what did Jared do? My God, I told him to be nice. I know you weren't his first pick, but it's stupid. I'll call him. I'm so sorry, Newt. I promise I'll fix whatever it is." Naomi started to get up from her chair, and I grabbed her wrist.

"It's not Jared." Our eyes locked and she looked down at me confused, then sank into her seat slowly.

"What happened?"

I realized I was holding her hand a little too tightly and I let it go. She peeled off the sleep mask and then the bonnet, and I sighed hard. It hurt me enough that I had to talk about it. I just wished I didn’t have to tell my sister five days away from her wedding.

"I can't walk down the aisle with Amber." If I just avoided the whole reason, that would be the best thing for both of us, but I knew Naomi would pry. It was her wedding, after all. She'd want to know what was going on behind the scenes.

"Why not?" she asked patiently. "Amber is my maid of honor. She's my best friend. You have to escort her…" Naomi nervously clasped her accessories in her hands on her lap as I rubbed my forehead in grief. The room suddenly felt colder than it was outside, but I found myself sweating under my coat.

"She's uh… she's seeing someone." God, it was killing me to even talk about it. I was such an idiot. I fell in love with her and she just used me for sex, or for an emotional boost, or whatever her ridiculous reason was.

"She's been seeing someone for a few years. I thought you knew that." Now Naomi's expression really shifted toward confusion, but her words gutted me. It felt like someone had put a vacuum to my lungs and sucked all the air out. She'd been dating this guy for years? Which meant I really was just a fling to her and nothing more. I really was her toy. "What's going on, Newt?" Naomi asked.

"I… We…" I gritted my teeth and looked away in embarrassment. Telling a person I got played by my ex felt liberating. It felt empowering, like I was the victor for dumping her and leaving her behind as the trash no one wanted. But this felt horrifyingly shameful. I had let her play me so well, I came out looking like a buffoon. "I had sex with her—more than once. We were sort of having a fling and?—"

Naomi burst out laughing and laid her bonnet and mask on the table between us. The reaction was so strange, I had to look at her face to make sure she'd heard me correctly, because she clearly had the wrong impression of her friend. But even when I scowled at her, she didn't stop.

"Uh, great joke, Newt. I know Amber. She'd never cheat on Derek. They're totally in love." Naomi stood and started out of the room as if I were pranking her, and I tore off my coat and left it on the seat then followed her. I could smell my own musk from anxiety sweat and felt angry that Amber did this to me.

"It's not a joke, Nomie." I caught her hand and made her face me.

"You expect me to believe a girl I've known almost my whole life pulled a fast one and is cheating on her boyfriend with my brother right under my nose?" She scoffed, then glowered as if annoyed by my pranking. "She tells me everything. She'd have told me."

"I'm serious." If only I had pictures of us together, something to show her so she'd believe it. "And she's not sick. She's at her apartment right now with that guy." I pointed to my lip. "He did this to me. I confronted her right in front of him and he slugged me." The busted lip was scabbed now, but it was proof enough.

Naomi backed away and shook her head. "You're wrong, Newt. Amber wouldn’t do that, not to Derek, and not this close to my wedding. She'd know how it would affect me."

"She swore me to secrecy. She made me promise I wouldn’t say anything to you because it would take the spotlight off you and your special day. I'm not lying." I could see the truth sinking in, but she didn't want to believe it. She shook her head and rubbed her tired eyes.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Naomi's whine came with a hunched-over posture and a self-hug across her middle.

"I'm just telling you, I'm not sure I can be a part of the wedding now. I can't stand to look at her. I'm in love with her and she just used me." My words were the final straw. Naomi's eyes welled up and she knew I was serious. She blinked and tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I'm getting married…" Her whimper broke my heart. I hated seeing her hurt like this, and maybe I should have just been man enough to hold it all in and not say a word until it was all over, but if I saw Amber at the wedding and then she put her arm through mine, I was likely to lose control. It would cause a scene right when everything was supposed to be magical. It was better this way.

"I'm sorry, Nomie," I told her, pulling her into my arms. She sobbed against my chest and I felt the pain, though no tears would come. I didn't want to cry over this. I cried enough over my ex, so much that I even put her name out of my vocabulary and any time it came up in conversation, I spat on the ground to clear my tongue.

The name Amber would forever be the same now. I just couldn’t think it or say it without feeling that stabbing pain in my chest.

"I messed things up. I'm really sorry. I don't know how to fix it." I could only stand there and hold her while she cried. I was sure she'd call Amber and they'd have words, but for now this was my solace, that at least Amber wouldn't be pulling the wool over my sister's eyes too. She'd see Amber for who she really was.